


Twin Size Mattress

by apostapal



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M, i'm here to be sad and share music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 17:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9335801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apostapal/pseuds/apostapal
Summary: "With tears in my eyes, I begged you to stay;You said, "Hey man, I love you but no fucking way."During the day, when it matters, he's Reaper. A ghost; a shell of a man. At night he's just Gabriel Reyes. A broken heart; a lost soul. Sometimes he's both. Those are the worst moments of what he calls life now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _She hopes I'm cursed forever to,_  
>  _Sleep on a twin-sized mattress,_  
>  _In somebody's attic or basement my whole life,_  
>  _Never graduating up in size to add another,_  
>  _And my nightmares will have nightmares every night,_  
>  _Oh, every night. Every night._ ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBl4jxKrPAA))

There's pieces of him still in there. He can feel them, moving around in the organic chaos of his mind, but he can't parse them out from the other things. The anger, the brainwashing, the blind violence... Not during the day, ever, but at night? Sometimes they find their way to the surface like the answer of an 8 ball surfacing in the unknown void of blue.

Rome, late winter. Hot copper and wet cotton and soft coughing fill his senses. A memory, not forgotten but taken.

“Gabe, you alright?” A voice. First, he doesn't know it at all. Then, suddenly, it's got a face and a name. He feels a hand reach out and take hold of his chin and opens his eyes.

“Hey sunshine.”

Jack Morrison looks at him, brows pulled together, and moves his hand—lifts his head some. His other hand reaches out and finds the hole in his hoodie, seeping blood into the empty tub. Gabriel coughs again and there's a crackle in the winded sound.

“Fuck, Gabe.” he leans down and pulls his hoodie over his head, hunting out the injury. At the time, he'd counted the bullet as a graze. Jack's face when he finds it tells him otherwise.

“'m fine.” he mumbles, even as Jack has to all but lift him out of the bloody tub with no help. “No doctor.”

“You've got air in your chest.” Jack replies shortly, wrapping one arm around his middle and hefting him out of the bathroom. “You have to.” Gabriel stumbles over the hotel carpet, leaning heavily on his side, and lets out a soft sigh.

“Ruins the mission.” he wheezes as Jack sits him on the bed, already hunting for his boots he just kicked off.

“I'm not gonna let you just die in the name of the mission, Gabe.” Jack replies shortly, sitting down next to him to lace his boots. His hip presses against Gabriel's and when he sits up their arms brush. Closeness and familiarity. Comfort. Suddenly, the comfort gives him the freedom of fear.

“I fucked up.” he mumbles, pressing his face against Jack's shoulder as the other man helps him up.

Jack shrugs, worms his arms around his waist to help him stand, and bumps his head gently against Gabriel's. “Like I do almost every stealth mission. Don't kill yourself over it.” he says gently, shifting so Gabriel can lean on his side again. “I'll take the heat, don't worry. They always spend at least an hour less yelling at me than you.”

The memory starts fading, getting further away, but the scene keeps going.

“You're always in the shit for me.” Gabriel replies as they start towards the door, pressing his face into the nook of Jack's neck briefly.

“It's right where I want to be.”

Jack smiles and shifts and there's warmth, lips against his temple and jawline and the corner of his mouth. The memory gets hazier, maybe for more reasons than he can recall, and Gabriel bathes in the attention for as long as he can. As long as he can enjoy. Then, Reaper surfaces again and he sits up, face coated in sweat and breath shaky. He doesn't even know why he sleeps anymore.

Even his nightmare has nightmares.

Soldier 76 is such a fucking terrible alias. Why bother even having one if it's so plain? Why bother hiding when your real name is fucking John, anyway? Why bother hiding your face if no one would recognize it like that?

Gabriel wants to ask him this but Reaper just tells him to _'get fucked'_ and steps backwards off a building the second he spots him. Because being around him too long turns them both back into Jack and Gabe and that programming somewhere in his head knows at least to avoid that. It knows it has to keep him under control then, or they're done for.

Sometimes, it glitches out and leaves him standing in a dark alley with the barrel of a gun pressed against his chest.

“Not running this time?” the soldier asks but all Gabriel hears is _Jack, Jack, Jackie, Jack_ —

The 8 ball of his mind stirs again and, this time, the answer that surfaces is Gabriel's.

“I miss you.”

The solider fumbles with his weapon and there's Jack— _his Jack_ —staring at him with that shitty ass visor blocking his view of a dumbfounded face.

“Stop fucking with me.” he snaps and the visage is back, but just barely.

But Jack's there and Gabriel's there enough to want to reach out and touch him. Want to feel that memory again, for just a second. His hand goes out and his clawed glove catches under the corner of the soldier's mask. Neither of them moves.

“I miss you.” he says and his voice goes raw, his vision blurring. “I want to come back.”

The gun lowers and there's Jack in his voice when the other man speaks again. “Then come back.” he says, shoulders sagging. “Just come back, Gabe.”

But the chaotic swirl of his mind is stirring up again and Gabriel snatches his hand away, pulling it in close to his chest, and says, “I can't.”

Before Jack can speak again, it's Reaper telling him to _'go rot'_ before he dissipates and leaves. He steals a look back just in time to see Jack's shoulders sag further, arms at his sides, and shake his head.

That night, his head is heavier than usual. He sleeps hard, face pressed into the pillow, and the nightmare is worse than usual. It's not a memory but a hope. An idea. A could-have-been that will absolutely never be.

Gabriel pulls the mask off the soldier's face and it's just Jack. His own mask gets knocked off roughly and he buries his face in Jack's shoulder, grabs handfuls of coat and breathes in his scent like he's been desperate for air for years. Jack pulls his hood down and runs his fingernails over his scalp, holds him as close as he physically can, and nestles his face against his neck.

“I miss you.” he says, over and over until his voice goes cracked and raw. “I miss you, Jackie.”

“I miss you too, Gabe.” Jack says, and his voice shakes.

“Don't cry.” he replies, almost laughing. “You know if you do, I will.”

But there's a loud, slightly-disgusting sniff against his coat and Gabriel knows it's already too late for that. Because they're both so tired and so alone. Because they've been alone before and after each other and the only time they've ever felt anything else was around each other. Because being alone is fucking hard and they just weren't cut out for it.

“Don't cry, shh.” he says again and runs his hands up and down Jack's back. “Sappy old man...”

He wakes up with his face wet, tears seeping from the corners of his eyes, and has to push down the broken noise that threatens to come up his throat when he realizes the dream never happened. He's so alone anymore.

He sleeps on a twin so he can't exactly roll over easily and go back to sleep. He hasn't slept on a single bed since he was a damn kid. Even SEP was kind enough to give them full mattresses. Overwatch era was a good one; pillow top king that felt like sleeping on a cloud. He tries not to think about it when he lays down at night. It's not like he ever sleeps very much anyway. No point having a nice place for it.

There's no point for more room either. He doesn't have Jack cramming his face in his armpit and grumbling about blankets. So he's got no reason to give himself any more room than the basic space required for his corporeal body. He'll have the same shitty mattress till he finally dies, he wagers. He deserves that much.

He shifts in his spot and actively refuses to think about those full mattresses in SEP and how, sometimes, Jack still crammed both of them onto one on cold nights (or, at least, nights he could use the cold as an excuse). He tosses and turns and pushes the memories of shopping for that cloud of a king size around in his brain in fitful half-sleep.

Because at night he's just Gabriel Reyes again. A sad excuse for a man who can't even ward off a little brainwashing when he wants to talk to his ex. Or, well, does it even count as an ex when they both supposedly died? Does it even matter when it still just feels like he's missing a limb—and not in the usual way that occasionally happens?

The 8 ball shakes again, though, and he sits up straight in bed and kicks his legs out from under the covers. He's got to move, got to go, and there's no point in trying to sleep away. It's not even like he's sure he needs to or not anymore.

The next time he sees Jack again, weeks later, his body seizes up at the memory of that nightmare. He could make it real, make it happen, but he doesn't. Because he's not strong enough. He probably won't ever be.

“Are we going to talk again this time?” He's trying to sound the the soldier again but it's just Jack—he can hear it in the slight tired note of his voice.

“What's there to talk about, Morrison?”

Jack's shoulders sag but his expression is out of view and, thus, unreadable. He takes one hand off his rifle and waves it helplessly in the air between them.

“You—you can always come back. You know that. I'd fight for you.” he says, “I know you're in there somewhere, Gabe, and I'm here for you.”

The void stirs up and, this time, he's not sure whether it's Reaper or Gabriel who answers with “Come back to what? Overwatch?” The string in his voice and the way it makes Jack's shoulders tense tells him it was Gabriel.

“It's not that—I'm not—”

“ _No._ ” He's not hearing this. Same shit, different day. Different people. “This is no way to break a brainwashing compulsion, old man.”

Jack lulls his head to the side and shrugs. “I tried.” he says, almost so quietly Gabriel doesn't hear him as he dissipates and vanishes.

 _Try harder,_ he thinks.

 _It's petty,_ he thinks later. When he's all alone in a safe-house on a musty twin mattress again. He deserves this, for being like this. Because he could go back. If no one else took him back at least Jack would. Jack was always soft for him. It was undue, yes, but he can't complain.

He was going to die sleeping on a shitty twin, probably bleeding out or some other equally shitty way for someone who'd made it through so much to go. But not because anyone but the demons in his own head wanted it to be that way.

 _No, that's not fair._ The voice in his head sounds a bit like Jack. _You're just tired._

He is. So he rolls onto his side, fits himself as well as he can on the bed, and tries to sleep. Tries not to dream. He's tired tonight.

Maybe if he can go one night without a nightmare, tomorrow will be different...


End file.
